“If I was professionally employed by Mrs. McNair I could not reveal such information without her consent.” She had a very precise and unaccented way of speaking, with a slight puff of a pause before each word, as though she considered it carefully beforehand.
“Such information might assist the case of the young man, her son, who finds himself in some difficulties.”
“Mr. Bierce, I have been employed by many different gentry in my years in San Francisco, and I owe them respect for their confidences.”
This woman was by no means intimidated by Bierce. She said, “Even if I possessed the information you require, I could not supply it without the permission of Lady Caroline Stearns.”
Bierce regarded her intently. “Mrs. Pleasant, you know who I am. This young man, Mr. Redmond, is a journalist with The Hornet. He writes occasional pieces on recent history, which are published opposite my column. Perhaps you have seen his most recent one. It is the tale of the Mussel Slough Tragedy and of certain corrupt actions and decisions on behalf of the Railroad. Mr. Redmond has asked to come along today because he also is interested in your career among the gentry in your several different capacities, and some mysteries that attend those functions.
“What particularly interests us is the charge of baby-farming that has been laid at your door. The acquisition of wanted children and the disposal of unwanted ones.”
Mammy Pleasant did not move a muscle. Her gold hoop earrings caught little dipping segments of light in that dim musty room.
Bierce continued, “As to Mrs. McNair’s condition when she married Mr. McNair—or shall we say her marital situation when she gave birth to Beaumont McNair—those dates are available in the Hall of Records.”
After a pause. Mammy Pleasant said, “Mrs. McNair was in a family way when she married Mr. McNair.”
“How far along was she?”
“About five months.”
“Who was the father?” Bierce asked.
Her earrings flipped as Mammy Pleasant shook her head.
“I think you would have made it your business to know,” Bierce said, leaning toward her.
“I cannot help you further,” she said, rising. She swept out of the room. We heard her say to the butler, “Please show the gentlemen to the door.”
I admired her dismissal of us.
As I climbed into the buggy after Bierce, I said, “You got something out of her. I didn’t think you would.”
“She doesn’t know what information they have recorded at the Hall of Records. I do.”
“What did you find out?”
“Not much,” he said chuckling. “Beau was born in March 1863. Mr. and Mrs. McNair were married in December of 1862.”
I couldn’t think what application that information could have. “Who was the father?” I asked.
“Ah,” Bierce said. “The pleasure of that discovery is still before us.”
13.
RECONCILIATION, n. – A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
–THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
At supper at the boardinghouse we were eight or nine—depending on whether or not the drummer was out of town—including The Hooter, a bank clerk, for his hoot of a laugh; and Fuzzy Bear, a horsecar conductor, both of them named by the youngest Barnacle, Johnny. After Mrs. B.’s repast of meatloaf and gravy, cabbage and mashed potatoes, with bread pudding for dessert, the Hooter, Fuzzy Bear and young Johnny Barnacle departed, leaving me with my coffee, and Jonas, Mrs. B., Belinda and her biggest brother, Colbert, a smelly twelve-year-old with a haystack of fair hair and a way of pointing his face away while his eyes regarded you, which made him resemble an apprentice cardsharp. I understood that I was part of a Barnacle family crisis.
Belinda sat with her hands in her lap and her tragic face raised like Joan of Arc contemplating the stake.
“Ain’t you ashamed to have Mr. Redmond know you have done this mean thing?” Mrs. B. said.
Belinda looked unashamed. Her face was at its prettiest when she was under duress.
“What she done was,” Jonas Barnacle said to me, over his coffee mug, “she stole the two bits from the jar where it was kept for the paperboy. Didn’t you, Belinda?”
Belinda rolled her eyes at me. I gathered that my presence was part of the punishment.
“Then she told me Colbert had took it. What she had did, she had stuck it under the scarf on Colbert’s dresser so I’d find it there. To get him whomped. Isn’t that right, Missy?”
Belinda set her lips more tightly together, staring straight ahead.
“That is about as mean a trick as I can think of,” Mrs. B. said. She had her hair done up in a severe bun on top of her head. She squinched her eyes at her daughter. “A mean little snip trying to get her brother in a fix.”
“I just hope Father Kennedy don’t hear of it,” Jonas Barnacle said, leaning his elbows on the table and pushing his face toward Belinda.
“Or Sister Claire,” Mrs. B. said. “That thinks little Miss Pet here might have a vocation.”
The flesh around Belinda’s eyes turned pink. She rose, with dignity, made her way past the empty chairs and out of the room.
“Get out of here,” Jonas Barnacle said to Colbert, who left with a smug glance at me.
The parents assumed expressions of severe sadness.
“Just don’t know what to do with that girl,” Jonas said.
“She’s going to be a fine young lady one of these days,” I said.
Mrs. B. sniffed. She had a tired, angular face in which the features were set in uneasy conjunction.
“Can’t even strop her like she deserves,” Jonas said. “Take a strop to her and she won’t cry, she won’t even flinch, look you straight in the eye and make you feel like a Cossack.”
“Says she’s too old to be stropped,” the mother said with another sniff. “Why would she do a thing like that? Sneaky!”
“Let me talk to her,” I said.
“You talk to her, Tom,” her father said, looking relieved.
I found Belinda seated outside on the rickety stairs to my top-floor room, with her skirt wrapped around her legs, her feet set primly side by side and her arms folded over her chest. She had been crying.
I sat down beside her and put my arm around her thin shoulders.
“They won’t believe me!” she said forcefully. “They just believe him. I said he stole it, and he said I stole it and put it on his dresser. So they believe him.”
“You shouldn’t have said it.”
“Oh, I know I shouldn’t have said it,” she mimicked. “But that’s not the point, Tom! It’s that they’d believe him and not me! Do you know why? Because I’m a girl and he’s a boy. Boys are worth something and girls aren’t worth anything. Girls are sneaky, and boys are—stalwart! Well, he’s not stalwart, he’s a mean little pig and I hate him.”
“You don’t want to hate your brother,” I said.
“Yes, I do; I hate him! But I hate her worse.”
“Your mother!”
“Because she hates girls. She must’ve been a girl once herself! She doesn’t think girls are worth raising. She thinks girls are sneaky and whining. Well, that’s just what he is!”
“She just sounds like that when she’s angry with you.”
“You don’t know! Everything’s for him. Not so much Johnny. Colbert always comes first. He gets the biggest slice of pie, and if there’s only money for one of us to throw the ring-thing at the fairgrounds, Colbert gets to do it. I can throw better than he can! But I’m second, or third, because I’m a girl. I’m no good because I’m a girl. I hate her!”